In 1938, at the Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf, the Nazi regime opened an exhibition around music with the theme: 'Entartete Musik'. They collected examples of what they considered degenerate music: jazz or 'Nigger-Musik', the atonal expressions of the Second Viennese School, music by Jewish composers, 'music bolshevism'.
Gustav Mahler, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Mischa Spoliansky; these were just a few names on the long list of depraved composers. Numerous musicians and composers felt the pinch in the early 1930s and promptly emigrated abroad, where they often had to start again from scratch. Others were deported to one of the concentration camps or, if they were more 'lucky', to the model ghetto in Theresienstadt.
While there, music offered a welcome distraction from the harsh conditions and continuous fear. Most of them eventually perished, and all were almost forgotten after the war. Now they sound again…